In 1981, the Ransom Center received by gift a small collection of letters and
documents produced between about 1500 and 1749 and relating primarily to the German
city of Windsheim (now Bad Windsheim, in Bavaria). These materials were largely
concerned with local legal and political affairs and in many cases addressed to
the
town's burgomaster or produced under municipal authority.

Located on the River Aisch in south central Germany, Windsheim was in the early years
of the 16th century a small city of fewer than three thousand souls. It was
nevertheless designated a Reichsstadt and thus enjoyed
a measure of independence within the Holy Roman Empire.

The epoch in which the major portion of these papers was created was one of great
cultural and intellectual upheaval in Germany, marked not only by the rebirth
of
humanistic learning and the Protestant Reformation but by periods of great violence
and social dislocation. The Peasants' revolt erupted in Germany in 1524 and before
its end the following year perhaps a hundred thousand were killed in the swift
and
decisive aristocratic response.

Less than a century later the division of Europe into Catholic and Protestant lands
led to the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), in which more than a third of the
population of Germany eventually perished. In the fall of 1631 Windsheim itself
was
occupied in turn by the forces of the Catholic League and then by the opposing
Swedish army of King Gustavus Adolphus.

The "Austraginsachen Lenhard Seckelmans" (Folder 1.1) comprises 46 unfoliated
parchment leaves of commentary and testimony regarding a matter of civil law
involving Lenhard Seckelmann in the law courts of Windsheim during the second
decade
of the sixteenth century. The date 1513 is found on the title leaf of the volume,
which has at a later date been numbered in pencil H189a.

Folders 1.1 and 1.2 are accompanied by a cover sheet reading "Allerhand original
Schreiben Tagsatzungen Band anders zu Sachen Seckelmanns" and bearing the shelf
number B200 in red crayon. Statements by Johannes Dentzer, Michel Pranz, Johann
Freiherr von Schwarzenberg, and Lenhard Seckelmann are found in the text of the
Austraginsachen, along with references to Balthasar Dentzer, Georgius Dentzer,
_____
Finger/Fingerer, Hanns Kegeth, and Jorg Knopff.

Folders 1.2 and 1.3 contain 29 letters and documents dated between 1511 and 1514
regarding the Seckelmann matter. These bear pencil notations H189ab through H189ap
and H189d through H189z. Unrelated but also found in folder 1.3 are two documents
and a brief memorandum, all undated and unsigned but of the sixteenth century.

Several of the letters appear under the name of Johann Freiherr von Schwarzenberg
acting in his judicial capacity at the court in Bamberg and bear his seal. Other
letters present carry the name of Melchior von Seinsheim and generally have the
Schwarzenberg seal. Documents H189k and H189l were issued on behalf of the city
of
Windsheim and each bears the municipal seal.

Folder 1.4 contains four letters addressed to the municipal government of Windsheim
along with two documents, both of the latter bifolia. All are of the sixteenth
century. Each item has the shelf number B196 in red crayon together with the
respective pencil notations H8, H12, H14, H16, H21, and H24.

Letter H8 was issued over the name of Erkinger von Seinsheim zu Hohenkottenheim and
carries the Schwarzenberg seal. The other letters (H14, H16, and H24) have unknown
or imperfect seals. Document H21 contains many personal names, including those
of
the burgomaster of Windsheim, Conradt Hayden, and of Martin and Erkinger von
Seinsheim.

The oversize file contains two further sixteenth century items, both documents on
parchment. One of these documents retains its two wax seals, each of which hangs
from the document by a cloth ribbon and is contained within a small cylindrical
wooden box called a skippet.

"Beforchung der Brütter und Gesell. S. Johanns Alttars" (Folder 1.5) is 18 leaves
in
length and is paginated [1-2], 35 [i.e. 34] p. The text proper ends on page 26,
with
the final leaves bearing only page enumeration. Pages 33 and 34 are misnumbered
34
and 35; the penultimate leaf (pages 31-32) has been removed. Following prefatory
remarks on pages 1-2 relating to the support of the church in Dannstadt by various
members of the Heidelberg academic community the manuscript presents information
on
arable land, pasturage, ground rents in kind (that is, in grain) and in currency.
Dannstadt is now Dannstadt-Schauernheim, in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate
in
southwest Germany.

The document is enclosed in a wrapper formed by a parchment bifolium from a missal,
probably German in origin and dating from between 1350 and 1450. The present text
of
the missal includes portions for Pentecost and Holy Trinity; at the top of the
recto
of the first leaf the caption title "Danstatter Beforchung anno 1601" has been
added.

Folders 1.6 through 1.9 (together with the oversize file) house an interrelated group
of archival materials documenting the efforts of Windsheim citizens to seek redress
from the Imperial court in regard to various abuses of power by the Magistrat of the
city of Windsheim.